Top 5 SEO Practices That Will Flourish in 2018

We understand how crucial it is for a business to secure top rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs) in order to truly capitalize on digital marketing means. Successful SEO strategies always focus on and adapt to ongoing changes in the mechanism that determine the fate of websites. The article will focus on some of the search engine optimization strategies and techniques that will flourish in 2018 and continue to help businesses achieve their online marketing goals.

Search Engine Watch reveals that more than 1.6 billion people use Google each month and around 70 % of all searches are performed on Google. This fact makes it pretty clear why your business needs an authoritative and effective presence in the search.

Big brands focus on valuable content and earn the SEO value through viral content, back links, mentions, and word of mouth. It is understandable that your brand cannot compete with the giants in your industry in terms of resources and popularity. However, you can surely think of beating those giants in SEO by adopting best and relevant practices. Following are some of the SEO techniques that will help your business compete with and outsmart big competitors in search in 2018.

1. User Experience is the New SEO

User experience optimization is one of the critical factors that will define your success on the internet. It will become even more relevant and significant in terms of SEO and user satisfaction. If your site offers incredible user experience, you are likely to engage people and, resultantly, help search engines discover your site and favor it over others.

A site’s speed, navigation structure, usability, and readability are some of the factors that decide whether or not your site offers a great user experience. Examine your visitors’ browsing habits and analyze them to figure out why or why nor users stay on your site. For example, if visitors come directly from search and do not stick around long enough, it probably means that the user experience or the content on your site is not in good shape.

In order to dominate search engines in 2018, you have to develop a flawless and personalized user experience that can maintain search traffic and improve conversion rate. This is how your online presence can flourish in the future, both in terms of SEO and ROI.

2. Link Building is Crucial to SEO

Search engines assign great importance and value to healthy links and they will continue to do so in the coming years. In fact, it will be more important than ever to develop strategies seeking high-quality links. Do not waste time in building valueless new links as they will not help you build authority and SEO strength.

It is a fact that the more valuable and popular a site is, the more links from that site matter. Wikipedia, for instance, is one of the most popular and important sites which has thousands of sites linking to it. All you need is to create high-quality content and publish it on credible and high traffic sites to influence search engines.

3. High-Quality Content is the Air SEO Breath

SEO and content are inseparable. It is literally impossible to experience positive impact on search rankings without having a considerate content strategy in place. Content a business produces isn’t worth a dime if nobody sees and appreciates it. First, understand what kind of content your audience is looking for and prepare a list of targeted keywords. Then focus on creating valuable content based on your carefully selected keywords to not only earn back links but also boost your SEO efforts.

Content is what search engines crawl before they present your site to potential users. Google’s algorithm does not appreciate plagiarized and spammy content neither users find it useful. Always create original, meaningful, and engaging content to earn the appreciation from search engines as well as your visitors.

4. Voice Search is Reshaping SEO

When it comes to building futuristic SEO strategies, we cannot skip voice search technology which is transforming the way we communicate information and seek quick solutions on the internet. The increasing use of voice search signifies the need for long-tail search keywords and content that matches the user’s’ conversational tone.

Voice search is still struggling to achieve its full potential as the digital assistants are constantly improving in terms of accuracy and usability. According to Google, 1 out of 5 searches already come from voice search. In order to develop a sustainable SEO strategy for your business, integrate voice search into your existing efforts and take advantage of this unique and emerging way of connecting with customers.

5. Local SEO is an Opportunity

The number of Smartphone users is increasing at a dramatic pace. People are using handheld devices increasingly to search local businesses and information related to online reviews, contact information, pricing, services, etc. There is already an FAQ feature added to Google maps that enables people to post questions to businesses and allows them to respond. 2018 is surely the right time to improve your local SEO and take advantage of local searches on Google.

Takeaways

The 5 SEO practices we have discussed so far are, undoubtedly, super important and will help you improve your online presence and authority in 2018. Meanwhile, do not forget to focus on the following useful techniques:

Make your site super fast and eliminate all of the unnecessary and off-putting elements in order to achieve visitors satisfaction. When a user is happy, search engines are happy.

Build a responsive website that offers equally superb user experience across devices; tablets, smart phones, laptops, to name a few. Unresponsiveness of your site can badly affect your SEO endeavors.

Creating a sound presence on social media and sharing useful content will help you attract quality traffic and earn more quality links.

Pay due attention to Yahoo and Bing as Google is not the only platform from where you can attract new customers.

Make a good use of long-tail keywords as they will help you understand the needs of your prospects using specific search terms to find specific products and services.

Rewrite your old web copy and blog posts to improve them in terms of relevance and quality.

It is of paramount significance to keep up with the ever-changing trends and technologies. Make sure that your business maintain and implement a relevant and successful SEO strategy in 2018 and beyond by capitalizing on established and emerging trends.